The Pied Piper of Hamelin, and Other Poems - Robert Browning

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bereft

      Of all the pleasant sights they see,

      Which the Piper also promised me.

      For he led us, he said, to a joyous land,

      Joining the town and just at hand,

      Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew

      And flowers put forth a fairer hue,

      And everything was strange and new;

      The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here,

      And their dogs outran our fallow deer,

      And honey-bees had lost their stings,

      And horses were born with eagles’ wings:

      And just as I became assured

      My lame foot would be speedily cured,

      The music stopped and I stood still,

      And found myself outside the hill,

      Left alone against my will,

      To go now limping as before,

      And never hear of that country more!”

XIV

      Alas, alas for Hamelin!

      There came into many a burgher’s pate

      A text which says that heaven’s gate

      Opes to the rich at as easy rate

      As the needle’s eye takes a camel in!

      The Mayor sent East, West, North, and South,

      To offer the Piper, by word of mouth,

      Wherever it was men’s lot to find him,

      Silver and gold to his heart’s content,

      If he’d only return the way he went,

      And bring the children behind him.

      But when they saw ’twas a lost endeavour,

      And Piper and dancers were gone for ever,

      They made a decree that lawyers never

      Should think their records dated duly

      If, after the day of the month and year,

      These words did not as well appear,

      “And so long after what happened here

      On the Twenty-second of July,

      Thirteen hundred and seventy-six:”

      And the better in memory to fix

      The place of the children’s last retreat,

      They called it, the Pied Piper’s Street —

      Where any one playing on pipe or tabour

      Was sure for the future to lose his labour.

      Nor suffered they hostelry or tavern

      To shock with mirth a street so solemn;

      But opposite the place of the cavern

      They wrote the story on a column,

      And on the great church-window painted

      The same, to make the world acquainted

      How their children were stolen away,

      And there it stands to this very day.

      And I must not omit to say

      That in Transylvania there’s a tribe

      Of alien people who ascribe

      The outlandish ways and dress

      On which their neighbours lay such stress,

      To their fathers and mothers having risen

      Out of some subterraneous prison

      Into which they were trepanned

      Long time ago in a mighty band

      Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick land,

      But how or why, they don’t understand.

XV

      So, Willy, let me and you be wipers

      Of scores out with all men – especially pipers!

      And, whether they pipe us free fróm rats or fróm mice,

      If we’ve promised them aught, let us keep our promise!

      HERVÉ RIEL

I

      On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two,

      Did the English fight the French, – woe to France!

      And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the blue,

      Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue,

      Came crowding ship on ship to Saint Malo on the Rance,

      With the English fleet in view.

II

      ’Twas the squadron that escaped, with the victor in full chase;

      First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, Damfreville;

      Close on him fled, great and small,

      Twenty-two good ships in all;

      And they signalled to the place

      “Help the winners of a race!

      Get us guidance, give us harbour, take us quick – or, quicker still,

      Here’s the English can and will!”

III

      Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and leapt on board;

      “Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass?” laughed they:

      “Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and scored,

      Shall the Formidable here with her twelve and eighty guns

      Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way,

      Trust to enter where ’tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons,

      And with flow at full beside?

      Now, ’tis slackest ebb of tide.

      Reach the mooring? Rather say,

      While rock stands or water runs,

      Not a ship will leave the bay!”

IV

      Then was called a council straight.

      Brief and bitter the debate:

      “Here’s the English at our heels; would you have them take in tow

      All that’s left us of the fleet, linked together stern and bow,

      For a prize to Plymouth Sound?

      Better run the ships aground!”

      (Ended Damfreville his speech.)

      “Not a minute more to wait!

      Let the Captains all and each

      Shove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels on the beach!

      France must undergo her fate.

V

      “Give the word!” But no such word

      Was ever spoke or heard;

      For up stood, for out stepped, for in struck amid all these

      – A Captain? A Lieutenant? A Mate – first, second, third?

      No such man of mark, and meet

      With his betters to compete!

      But a simple Breton sailor pressed by Tourville for the fleet,

      A poor coasting-pilot he, Hervé Riel the Croisickese.

VI

      And “What mockery or malice have we here?” cries Hervé Riel:

      “Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards,

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